Final Surge Podcast

On Episode 14 we have Christ Newport of Everyday Athlete Matters. Chris is a triathlete, coach, and  a registered dietician. We are going to talk about fueling, recovery, and hydration. How did you get your start in running and endurance sports? You went through Team In Training as a coach or participant? So what type of athletes are you training? What is the demographic of your athlete? You do a lot with sports nutrition. What are the biggest mistakes you see endurance athlete make? Great breakdown on hydration, but if you had someone who could not afford to get tested, what general hydration advice would you have? There is a common formula for hydration, take body weight in pounds, divide in half and that is a general amount of ounces you should be drinking a day. Do you teach that formula? You say you work with everyday athletes so are there differences for what a housewife who loves to run and is trying to run a slightly better 5k should be eating and how they should be eating compared to what someone tra

On episode 13 of the final surge podcast we talk to Mike Caldwell, the coach of the Asics Greenville Track Club Elite. One of the reasons we have seen a resurgence in American distance running over the last few years is the emergence of post-college Olympic developmental teams like GTC-Elite. We talk to Coach Caldwell about how he got started with the GTC and he discusses why he would rather some of his athletes did not wear a GPS watch during recovery runs. Now on to the show. How did you get your start in running? After college did you make your transition straight into coaching or what did you do post-collegiately? - He did some training with Frank Shorter and the Florida Track Club. How did you get your start coaching elite athletes after that? Currently, you catch the Asics Greenville Track Club GTC-Elite, how did that come about?  As a college coach at Furman what were you finding from the athletes coming in after their high school career. Did you find them mostly overtrained, undertrained or what? When

Today we have a treat for you training enthusiast. Many of you may not know Coach Tom Schwartz, but a lot of you who read message boards know the poster Tinman who has some of the most read threads on training on the web. Tom also is the coach of some of the best youth runners in the world including Drew Hunter who this past year broke the 4-minute mile on more than one occasion as a high school senior and 12-year old sensation Grace Ping who ran a 16:44 5k. Tinman and I talk about how he would structure a new high school program and build up a runner if he had the program. We talk about the difference between tempo and CV runs, how he would structure a week and when would he add in spadework. Then we talk about Drew Hunter turning pro and he has a message for the youth runners in this country. Get your notebook and pen and ready, now on to the show. 1:10 How did you get your start in the running community - Schwartz took over coaching early in his high school career. 6:15 You have written some of the greates

In episode 10 we get ready for the start of track at the Olympics by talking to coach Drew Wartenburg of the NorCal Distance Project. Drew coaches Kate Grace who will be running the 800 and Kim Conley who will be running the 5k in Rio. We talk about their training, race strategies, how they use Final Surge in their training and answer some questions from Twitter. :45 How did you get your start in running? 3:40 When you started coaching what level was that at? 4:40 Then in 2014 you started the NorCal Distance Project? 5:42 You had a pretty good showing in the Olympic trials. Let’s start by talking about what Kate Grace did in the 800. What a great story this was. She ran controlled early and qualified 8th in the first round. Then in the second round, 8 make finals, and she was 6th. And then saving her best for last I believe she ran a PR in the 800? 7:25 What was the thought process on focusing on the 800 and tell us what you two were thinking going into the finals? They talked about staying safe, which if you

In episode 11 we talk to coach James McKirdy of McKirdy Trained. James has built an amazing business in just a year starting from scratch and building up to over 100 clients and hiring other coaches to help him. McKirdy Trained coaches athletes who are brand new and never run before all the way up to Olympic Qualifiers. Now on to the show. How did you get your start in running? How did you transition to coaching? So was your current coaching business McKirdy Trained the business you started 14 years ago or is that more recently? I understand you coach everything from Olympic qualifiers to those who cannot run 5 mins. So what are you looking for in new clients? What makes McKirdy trained special and different amongst the other programs out there? Coaching large numbers and some internet clients I’m guessing one of the hardest parts can be communications and feedback. How are you using final surge to help with that? Let’s take an average runner. What can an average runner who contacts you look to see within the

Welcome to episode 9 of the final surge podcast. This week it is our pleasure to talk to professional runner and coach Neely Spence Gracey. Neely recently made her marathon debut and finished as the top American women in Boston. We talk about her recent coaching change, her coaching career and how she is using Final Surge to help grow her business. We also find out what she has planned for 2020. 1:10 Our first question that we always start with our guests is always how did you get your start in running? - Interesting fact, Neely was born while her father Steve Spence was running the Boston Marathon. 2: 25 You were a successful high school runner and probably could have run at just about any college, why did you decide to go to a D2 school over a D1? - Neely stayed close to home at Shippensburg University. 4:05 If you were sitting down with a classroom full of high school runners, who are deciding where to run in college, what advice would you have for them? - Neely thinks a visit to the school is important. 4

In Episode 8 of the Final Surge Podcast, we talk to Iowa State Runner Nathan Rodriguez. Nathan was a multiple-time state champion runner in high school and is now one of the top runners at Iowa State in his sophomore year. We talk to Nathan about what the recruiting process was like when he made his decision to run for Iowa State and what was the biggest factor in deciding which school to run at. Nathan then shares some advice he would give to incoming high school freshman and then juniors and seniors who are thinking they want to run in college. :50 First question I always ask, how did you get your start in running. 1:35 You had many great moments in high school including a state championship as an individual and team in cross country and several on the track. So what was the greatest moment to you of your high school career? 4:20 Now that you have a little experience of running in college for a few years and you can look back at it. What do you think is the most important thing you did in your high school c

Jason Fitzgerald runs a very successful site called Strength Running. Jason has developed a reputation as an expert in strength training with his coaching of runners. :40 Can you tell us how you got your start in running? 2:00 You now run a very popular website and coaching service called Strength Running … How did you make a transition into coaching? 3:20 Every coach I have talked to so far on this podcast has talked about the importance of consistency. And running injury free may be the most important factor in running consistently. What do you think is the key to staying injury free? 6:45 So let’s start with a new runner. Maybe they just did a coach to 5k. They are still 30lbs overweight, but they finished their first 5k and have caught the running bug. What would you tell this runner they need to do to stay healthy? 9:05 You mention dynamic workouts and warmups, do you have any resources or can you lay out what that would look like? Mattock Dynamic Warm-up he mentioned  Jason’s IT Band Routine  Jason’s st

Imagine if I wrote a movie about a kid who was a successful high school runner and soccer player who received a scholarship to run at a major D1 university. Before he even made it to the first college practice, he was told that his career was over become a heart issue. Then seven years later, on a bet,  enters a triathlon against doctors advice and becomes hooked and would transition into leaving a successful law firm to become a professional triathlete. I would either get have a Hollywood blockbuster, or I would get laughed at for being too unbelievable. Today, we bring you the story of Justin Park, who did all of this. I hope you enjoy the story as much as I did.    You can find out more about Justin at FinalSurge.com/Podcast

Luke Humphrey (Twitter) is a professional runner with the Hanson-Brooks Running team and the owner and head coach of Hanson Coaching Services. In this interview we talk to the Coach about how he got into running, what advice he has for busy athletes and his take on the state of the U.S. men's marathon scene. :45 How did you get your start in running? 2:40 What advice do you have for college runners who want to run post-collegiately? 5:25 What made you decide to transition from a professional runner to the owner and head coach at Hanson Coaching Services? 7:05 You have recently launched a new coaching site, Hanson Coaching Services, can you tell us about the new site and who the site and training is geared towards? 9:30 The Hanson Training system is a very well know and respected program inside the marathon and distance community. What made you decide to write a book about it? 10:45 Could you tell a new runner who has maybe not heard about what Keith and Kevin Hanson teach what makes your program training diff

For our fourth podcast, we talk to former elite runner Ben Rosario, who now spends his time coaching the Northern Arizona Elite Hoka Team. We talk to Ben about how he got his strat in running and talked to Ben about what his high school running career was like. With Ben having run at a D-II school we talked about how high school kids who may not be good enough to run at a D-I school should not give up their running dreams. Ben goes into depth about the possibilities that D-II and D-III schools offer for runners. His advice about finding the right fit for you after high school is pure gold for any high school distance runner. We then talked about how Ben made the transition into coaching after being a runner for the Hanson Brook's distance project. We discussed how his Northern Arizona Elite team ended up in a deal with the Hoka running company. Ben spends a lot of time explaining exactly how his current squad got together to form one of the top teams in the world. We spend a few minutes talking about the uniq

Former Boston Marathon Champ and longtime Runner's World editor Amby Burfoot joined us for a great talk about his half-century in running and his new book, First Ladies of Running. Amby got his start in running when he was a sophomore in high school. Amby has run over 110,000 miles in his career, which is equivalent to running around the equator more than four times. With all those miles he has had very few injuries. Amby talks to us about why the mind is so important to our running as we get older. Amby is now more involved and concerned with the overall general health of society these days. Amby talks about the irony of us becoming a more obese society in the middle of a fitness revolution which we have gone through. Being so plugged into the sport first as a winner of the Boston Marathon, then the last what 38 years at Runners World, Amby has had a front-row seat to the evolution of training. We talk about training secrets and just like the two coaches we have had on before Amby, it seems to come down to h

Coach Brad Hudson starts out by telling us about how he got started in running. Being an average soccer player he tried running one day and a cross country coach recognized his talent quickly. Hudson was fortunate enough to be coached early by a young Mark Wetmore. In high school, Hudson would have some weeks where he was running 140 miles in a week. We talk about how Hudson made the transition into coaching from being a runner himself and selling shoes. The Hudson Elite team is making some noise with recent successes in the running community. They have a unique group of runners. We talk about how the runners he coaches are developmental athletes with jobs and school and life trying to train and get better. All of Hudson’s athletes do coaching and use Final Surge as part of their coaching program. You can find out more about his coaching programs at HudsonElite.com. Proceeds from the athletes coaching mostly go to the club to help support the athletes. Everyone Hudson coaches, and every coach that works for

In episode one of the Final Surge podcast, we talk with Coach Jay Johnson about how he became a coach, common running injuries and his upcoming book on marathon training for busy people. Jay has a great podcast called the Run Faster Podcast. Jay is always sharing information and advice on his website, and make sure you sign up for his email list too!  Jay has an amazing youtube channel where he shows you many SAM (Strength and Mobility) drills including the lunge matrix which we talk about in this episode. And if you are a high school runner or coach, make sure you check out his Boulder Running Camps, one of, if not the top high school running camps in the country.